One of the reasons that Tom Brady seemingly came out of nowhere to become the greatest NFL quarterback of all time was that he had to scratch and claw to get playing time in college at Michigan.
As the transfer portal in modern-day college football is raring, a story emerged from Brady’s coach with the Wolverines, Lloyd Carr, that was striking about the quarterback’s time in Ann Arbor.
Brady redshirted his first year at Michigan, then went two more seasons in which he barely saw the field.
At some point in this stretch, he went to Carr to request his release so he could transfer somewhere else where he could get playing time.
“It’ll be the biggest mistake of your life,” Carr told Brady, as covered by Yahoo Sports.
Tom Brady won seven Super Bowls in the NFL.Getty Images
“You came here to be the best. You came here because of the great competition. … If you walk away now, you’ll always wish you had stayed and tried to compete. You’ll always wonder what would have happened if you stayed.”
After thinking it over, Brady, who would go on to win seven Super Bowls in the NFL, came back to Carr’s office the next day and vowed to compete.
“I’m staying,” Brady allegedly said. “And I’m going to prove to you I am a great quarterback.”
While Brady took most of the snaps for Michigan as a junior and senior, he still had to fend off Drew Henson, then a local phenom who would go on to be a baseball prospect in the Yankees’ system.
In an interview with Howard Stern in 2020, Brady told his side of the story about getting talked out of transferring.
Lloyd Carr had to talk Tom Brady out of transferring out of the Michigan football program.Getty Images
“I went in and talked to Lloyd Carr. I said, ‘I don’t really think I’m going to get my chance here, I think I should leave,’ and he said, ‘Tom, I want you to stay, and I believe in you and I think you could be a good player, but you’ve got to start worrying about the things you can control,’” Brady recalled.
“When he said that he wanted me there, I went to bed that night, I woke up the next day, and I figured, you know what, if I’m going to be — and I still feel this way today — in a team sport, you’ve got to sacrifice what you want individually for what’s best for the team.
“So if you’re not the best guy, it’s a disservice for the team if you’re forced to somehow play. My feeling was, if I’m going to be the best, I’ve got to beat out the best and if the best competition’s at Michigan, I’ve got to beat those guys out if I’m going to play. I ended up committing to be the best.”
